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Elementary OS' contribution to their own distribution is probably less than 1%. Almost all the effort into writing and packaging the software has been carried out by others. They are standing on the shoulders of giants. Why the fuck should they demand money for other people's work? It is disrespectful to call people cheaters, when they are grabbing money in exchange for other people's work! If anything, that is cheating. Elementary OS are so entitled its untrue.

New submitter Heart44 writes: A study in the British Medical Journal shows that consuming alcohol — any volume, any type — does not increase life expectancy. The full academic paper is not paywalled. From its conclusions: "Beneficial associations between low intensity alcohol consumption and all cause mortality may in part be attributable to inappropriate selection of a referent group and weak adjustment for confounders. Selection biases may also play a part." The associated editorial adds, "Firstly, in health as elsewhere, if something looks too good to be true, it should be treated with great caution. Secondly, health professionals should discourage suggestions that even low level alcohol use protects against cardiovascular disease and brings mortality benefits. Thirdly, health advice should come from health authorities, not from the alcohol industry, and, finally, the alcohol industry and its organizations should remove misleading references to health benefits from their information materials."

...but its been missing some basic features for years (in the windows and android versions):

1) preserve playlist between invocations of the programme (playlist resets every time you close vlc)2) preserve state of music library as soon as you make changes to it (add music to vlc library, don't close vlc, library never gets saved)

According to Georgia State University spokesman Don Hale, the devices are pinhole camera being used in a solargraphy project to track the rising and setting of the sun over a three-month period. "Students were instructed to take their cameras home and to place them in locations that would provide interesting scenes with bright sunlight," Hale said. "The locations were selected by the students."

It was up to each of the 18 students in the class to find a spot for their own project, the university said. The university was made aware of the art project Tuesday morning and, through its police department, immediately informed the Atlanta Police Department, Hale said.

This is one time where survivorship bias is not a flaw. If someone who got elected says it costs this much, then it probably did. We don't hear from all the people who spent less, *because they failed to get elected*!

Personally I think at least part of government should be drawn by lot (a la jury service), as elections really devolve to a spending contest, despite being at least theoretically democratic.

In the UK we have had majority governments formed from one of two parties for decades. At the last election (and almost certainly at the upcoming one) we had for the first time a coalition government where one of the main 2 parties had to team up with a minority party in order to form a government. This is a big improvement as by being forced to compromise with the minority party, the larger party has had to same some of its more extreme instincts.

There is no reason it couldn't also happen in the USA. However if you convince yourself that it can never happen (and worse convince others that this is the case), then maybe it won't.

Every new altcoin should be regarded as a pre-mined pump and dump scam until proven otherwise.

The great strength of bitcoin is its network effect.

Every new coin has to demonstrate how they will gather sufficient network effect to make themselves useful, the equivalent of overtaking facebook, google or amazon. It could certainly be done but think how many years it is since facebook overtook myspace! It doesnt happen very often.

HughPickens.com writes The WaPo reports that Danielle and Alexander Meitiv in Montgomery County Maryland say they are being investigated for neglect after letting their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter make a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. "We wouldn't have let them do it if we didn't think they were ready for it," says Danielle. The Meitivs say they believe in "free-range" parenting, a movement that has been a counterpoint to the hyper-vigilance of "helicopter" parenting, with the idea that children learn self-reliance by being allowed to progressively test limits, make choices and venture out in the world. "The world is actually even safer than when I was a child, and I just want to give them the same freedom and independence that I had — basically an old-fashioned childhood," says Danielle. "I think it's absolutely critical for their development — to learn responsibility, to experience the world, to gain confidence and competency."

On December 20, Alexander agreed to let the children walk from Woodside Park to their home, a mile south, in an area the family says the children know well. Police picked up the children near the Discovery building, the family said, after someone reported seeing them. Alexander said he had a tense time with police when officers returned his children, asked for his identification and told him about the dangers of the world. The more lasting issue has been with Montgomery County Child Protective Services which showed up a couple of hours later. Although Child Protective Services could not address this specific case they did point to Maryland law, which defines child neglect as failure to provide proper care and supervision of a child. "I think what CPS considered neglect, we felt was an essential part of growing up and maturing," says Alexander. "We feel we're being bullied into a point of view about child-rearing that we strongly disagree with."